General Rules and Guidelines

Welcome to PekinBantams.com. This is a poultry community with a laidback, friendly, amiable atmosphere and we would like to keep it that way. So all we ask you to do is to follow a few simple rules and help us in maintaining PekinBantams.com.

If you are a new member here, please do read on.

1. Adult themes/content prohibited
We believe in keeping this site 100% free of adult content either in theme or language, implied or explicit. This includes any disturbing or graphic portrayal of violence. Please do keep this in mind. Anything inappropriate will be deleted or edited out. Please help us in our forums clean.
2. No spam policy
While we do allow you to link to your personal site in your signature and user profile, please do not create topics just to post a link to your site. No matter what your intentions may be, this is considered spam. Any kind of unwanted evangelism is also considered spam. Irrelevant links to commercial websites or inappropriate sites will be deleted. The latter kind of spamming will result in an automatic last and final warning. Users who post inappropriate links a second time will be banned without notice.
3. Personal attacks and flame wars
We all understand that online forums can sometimes be extremely stressful and frustrating. While differing opinions are common in online debates please do so in a respectful, impersonal manner. Indulging in personal attacks against any other member of the site will not be tolerated here. Persistent attacks will result in a warning. If you find anybody attacking you personally, please try not to respond. This will only make matters worse. Instead, report the post and move on. It will be taken care of by a moderator as soon as possible. Anybody found deliberately indulging in provocatively baiting other members just to get a response will receive an official warning.
4. Cross posting/double posting/posting in the wrong forum
While the moderators will take care of any posts made in the wrong forum, please try and pick the appropriate forum to post your messages. If you are in doubt about its topic, please post in General Ramblings. Cross posting (posting the same topic in more than one forum) is not allowed and double posts will be deleted.
5. Taboo topics
While we try to include all kinds of discussions here, please understand that as a poultry community, there are certain topics that we prefer not to bring up here. Religion/politics may be discussed, provided there is no evangelising or deliberate intent to malign other religions. Discussing your own personal, private issues are also taboo here. While we try to be as lenient as possible with regard to controversial subjects, we have to draw a line somewhere as to which kind topics can be discussed in a rational, peaceful manner. Moderators will judge on a case-by-case basis in such a situation.
6. Private Messaging
Please do not use the PM system to spam, advertise or otherwise harass any member. Note that any reported abuse of the PM system will result in loss of PM privileges for that particular member and matters will be taken further with your ISP.

Moderation Policy

In line with the spirit of the community, we prefer to be easy-going and friendly all of the time. Moderators have a fair degree of freedom to interpret the rules according to the dynamics of each situation. While we hope that there would be no cause for implementing the rules very strictly please do not take this to be weakness and take us for granted. It would be unfortunate if we were stretched to the limit of tolerance.

Having said that, please feel free to report any topics or posts that are not in compliance with our policy. A moderator will attend to it as soon as possible.

Note that all decisions taken by the moderators are final and binding on any issue. However, all of us make mistakes on occasions and in case you do have any problems with a moderation action or feel that you have been treated unfairly, please contact the administrator or the moderator in question by e-mail or PM and the issue will be taken up. Please do not bring up the issue, challenge or mock at moderators in public. Creating topics in the forum expressly to disagree with moderation actions will be severely frowned upon and may result in a warning.

Warning and Ban System

Depending on the severity of the offence or rule-breaking, offending members may be warned by PM or in public. All moderators are authorized to issue official warnings. We try our best to keep warnings friendly and explanatory in nature the first time. However repeat offences of the same nature will be frowned upon severely. A second official warning is dead serious. Any further offences of a serious nature will result in a ban. We try to keep this down to a minimum, so please don't give us any reason to warn you. We would prefer to apply bans only in the rarest of rare cases, so please do not stretch us to that limit.

The exception to the warning system is the no spam rule. As explained earlier, linking to inappropriate sites will result in an automatic, last and final warning. No notification will be given and a second offence will result in a ban without notice.

User Profile and Posting Guidelines

We request your co-operation in following these points with regard to your profile, signature and posts.

1. For the purposes of keeping the forums clean and neat, images ([IMG] tags) are not allowed either in the signature or the main body of posts. If you leave one astray, please edit your post to delete it.
2. We request you to use the "report to administrator" facility when appropriate.
3. Please use descriptive topic titles as much as possible.
4. Keep the text colours and font size changes to a minimum within the post.
5. Large sized and multicoloured text within signatures are also discouraged.

Our discussion forums are a public forum and everyone reads your questions and comments. Remember that discussions in this forum are open to anyone.

Statements made in website e-mails, articles and forums reflect only the views of their authors, and those authors or forum moderators, and should not be considered authorized PekinBantams.com spokespersons. Further, no communications among forum participants should be considered as veterinary medical advice. PekinBantams.com assumes no liability for the accuracy or outcomes of any suggestions, advice or other information provided by those posting on PekinBantams.com website forums. Any stated or implied credentials of a forum participant should be confirmed. This forum does not replace the need for you to visit with your vet! All treatment decisions should only be made after discussion with your animal health professional, ie your vet, and no changes in te treatment of your birds diet should be made based solely on any information found on this site.

PekinBantams.com do monitor the forums, and may occasionally answer a question or post an article as they see fit. Any e-mail, fax or other communications from PekinBantams.com, it's authors, volunteers or forum participants should never be considered medical advice or imply any action should be taken. To obtain medical advice, visitors must consult their own vet.

The administrators and moderators will attempt to keep all objectionable messages off this board. Please understand it is impossible to review every message. Again, all messages express the views of the author, and each author is held responsible for the content of his or her message